It’s not a surprise given his pedigree that those in attendance at training camp feel compelled to give daily updates about how often Pittsburgh Steelers first-round pick Broderick Jones lines up with the first-team offense at left tackle.
Everybody accepts as a given, for obvious reasons, that he is going to start there sooner or later. We’re all just figuring out how soon that will be—and if it will be in time for the regular-season opener in September.
For his part, the Georgia Bulldog is taking it all in stride, and his fellow offensive linemen have noticed. Veteran G James Daniels shared his thoughts on the rookie yesterday as he spoke to reporters, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on YouTube.
“Broderick [is a] hungry rookie”, he said, speaking to the fact that he doesn’t take anything for granted. “Even though he was a first-round pick, all that stuff, he still shows every day. He knows [in order] to be good, it’s not earned. He’s really impressed me so far”.
I want to make very clear that I strongly believe Daniels misspoke in the quote above in which he says “not earned”, presumably intending to communicate rather the exact opposite. The sentiment of his remarks reflects a view of Jones that he understands that nothing will be handed to him and that he is ready to work to earn his place.
As camp goes on, observers including our own Alex Kozora are increasingly forming the belief that Jones will indeed unseat incumbent Dan Moore Jr. as the Day-One starter, even though Moore, by many accounts, has looked improved going into his third year.
That’s still a preliminary analysis given that we haven’t even gotten into the preseason yet, and we should get a much better feel for the progress these young tackles are making in a game setting going up against unfamiliar opponents.
Jones is still having his ugly rookie moments, as Kozora talked about yesterday, but they’re all learning experiences designed to narrow his learning curve. He’s still got a good deal of work to do, but the more they can throw at him the sooner he’ll have the coaches’ trust and their willingness to put him out there.
The issue with starting a rookie lineman is there’s no breaking them in. If he plays as a starter, he’s playing 65-70 snaps a week. You can use him as an extra lineman, which is what the Steelers frequently did in the past under Todd Haley, and that’s very likely to happen with Jones if he doesn’t win the starting job.
But whether he does or he doesn’t, you can likely rest assured that he will keep pursuing one single goal every day he’s on the field: to be the best, and to be better than he was when he woke up. Keep doing that day after day and you’ll get where you’re trying to go soon enough.
